A five-member Libyan delegation met three senior Lebanese judicial officials, including prosecutor Jamal Hajar, on Monday in discussions that the parties said advanced talks to reduce the $11 million bail and lift a travel ban imposed on Hannibal Gadhafi. The meeting followed months of diplomatic engagement and the submission of a detailed investigation report by the Libyan team, as organizations involved in the case signaled expectations that restrictions on Gadhafi could be eased.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in a Beirut jail since his 2015 abduction from Syria by Lebanese militants, a seizure that took place in the northeastern Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek. Lebanese authorities have detained him amid inquiries into the 1978 disappearance of Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr; prosecutors have accused Hannibal Gadhafi of withholding information they consider key to that investigation. Last month, a Lebanese judge ordered Gadhafi’s release on $11 million bail but imposed a travel ban as part of the release conditions.
Libya formally requested Gadhafi’s release in 2023, citing concerns about his deteriorating health after he undertook a hunger strike while in custody. The Libyan delegation that met Lebanese officials on Monday brought a detailed investigation report to the talks, an action that officials and advocacy groups involved in the matter characterized as an effort to address judicial concerns and to support steps toward conditional release. Hostage Aid Worldwide, a humanitarian group that has worked with the Badreddine family and has engaged with Lebanese officials in recent weeks, said it expects the judicial restrictions to be lifted.
The case has produced strained diplomatic and domestic reactions. It remains a sensitive issue for the family and followers of Moussa al-Sadr, who disappeared in 1978 while traveling in Libya, and it continues to divide public sentiment in Lebanon. The disappearance has long been a focal point of political and legal debate, and Hannibal Gadhafi’s detention and the question of his possible involvement have sustained pressure on Lebanese courts and political institutions to produce conclusive findings.
Hannibal Gadhafi’s long trajectory in the years after the fall of his father’s government is part of the context surrounding the case. Born before Moussa al-Sadr’s disappearance, he left Libya after the 2011 uprising and relocated to Algeria before later moving to Syria, where he was seized by Lebanese militants in 2015 and subsequently taken to Lebanon. Since then, his legal status has been shaped by Lebanese judicial processes, humanitarian concerns raised by Libya and advocacy groups, and the broader sensitivities tied to the al-Sadr disappearance.
Monday’s meetings focused on negotiating the terms under which Lebanese authorities might modify the bail amount and remove the travel ban, with the Libyan delegation’s investigation report presented as supporting material for such changes. Hostage Aid Worldwide’s involvement and its public expectation that restrictions will be lifted underscore the humanitarian and diplomatic dimensions of the case, which have increasingly featured in recent intergovernmental and civil society exchanges.
The matter now rests with the Lebanese judiciary, which must assess the new material submitted by the Libyan delegation and weigh legal considerations related to the ongoing inquiry into Moussa al-Sadr’s disappearance. Further judicial rulings or formal decisions by prosecutors are anticipated as the next steps, and observers say the outcome will be closely watched by Lebanon’s political actors, the al-Sadr family, Libyan authorities and international humanitarian organizations engaged in the case.